Profile

Christine W. Letts is
the Rita E. Hauser Senior Lecturer in the Practice of Philanthropy
and Nonprofit Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). She has
extensive experience in private, nonprofit, and public management.
Letts joined the faculty of HKS in 1992 and was the founding
Executive Director of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
(now the Hauser Institute for Civil Society at the Center for
Public Leadership). From 2005-2011 she was the Senior
Associate Dean for Executive Education. After graduating from
Connecticut College with a degree in history, she started her
career working in New York City government. After receiving her MBA
from Harvard Business School in 1976, she joined Cummins Engine
Company in Columbus, Indiana and spent 10 years in labor relations
and manufacturing management roles, the last of which was Vice
President - Columbus Plant Operations. Her final job at Cummins was
President of the Cummins Engine Foundation and Vice President of
Corporate Responsibility. In 1988, Letts became the first Secretary
of the Indiana Department of Transportation, and later led the
Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. She co-authored
Virtuous Capital: What Foundations Can Learn from Venture
Capitalists (Harvard Business Review 1997), High
Performance Nonprofit Organizations (John Wiley and Sons 1999)
and Social Entrepreneurship and Societal Transformation
(The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science September 2004). Letts
also chairs and teaches nonprofit management in several Executive Education
programs including Strategic
Management for Leaders of Non-Governmental Organizations
(delivered in Turkey) and Strategic
Frameworks for Nonprofit Organizations (delivered online). She
co-teaches a new course in Philanthropy for students of Harvard
College and the Harvard Kennedy School and is involved in several
global philanthropy research projects.